Just Like Me
by Desslok
Summary: A one-shot based on the School Rumble anime.  Tenma loves Karasuma, Harima loves Tenma, and Eri loves Harima.  Or so they think. What is love, after all?  Harima/Eri.
1. Chapter 1

"Thank you, Imouto-san." Harima Kenji bowed deeply to the young woman before him, clasping his completed manuscript to his chest. "I could do nothing without your help." Tsuakamoto Yakumo blushed and bowed in return, simply murmuring "Harima-san".

Rising, Harima leaped onto his waiting motorcycle and sped off into the night, the Tsukamoto residence receding in his side mirror. Streetlights flashed over head as he wound along the road toward Dokansha headquarters. He could feel his cell phone vibrating in his pocket but ignored it. 'Fear not, editor-sama,' he thought trimumphantly, 'soon the needed pages will be in your hands and on their way to press. And when they are published, I will present them to Tenma-chan and she will finally know of my love!'

"Harima-kun... " Tsukamoto Tenma looked up at him with watery eyes, his manga clutched in hands at her lap. "Harima-kun... I never knew... but I've always known. Harima-kun, these pages... they show me the truth of my heart. It has always been you." Slowly, she extended her arms, the manga falling slowly to the floor through a cloud of rose petals. Her hands clasped behind his neck as she gazed deeply into his eyes and whispered the words he had longed to hear for so long now. "I lov...HONK"

The motorcycle swerved suddenly to the side, barely avoiding the oncoming truck that Harima had failed to notice in his reverie. He pulled to a stop on the side of the road and composed himself. "That was close! How ironic now that I am about to achieve my dreams to almost be hit by a truck." Harima patted the manuscript folder fondly and continued on. A gentle rain began to fall, the drops sparkling in the glare of the streetlights like a thousand fireflies heralding his mission of love.

Sawachika Eri, Suou Mikoto and Takano Akira huddled under the cover at the door to their friend Tenma's house, struggling to stay out of the rain. A short moment after knocking, the door flung open revealing a pajama-clad, tray-bearing Tenma smiling broadly at them. "Welcome everyone!" she shouted, stepping aside to let them bustle in. "Cookies!" she added, thrusting the tray under Mikoto's nose.

"I can see that, Tenma-chan," Mikoto replied, sniffing cautiously. "Did you make these?"

"No, that was Yakumo! She's the best little sister ever!" Tenma spun and thrust out a thumbs-up to Yakumo, who peered around a corner out of the kitchen, blushing. Mikoto smiled with relief and eagerly grabbed a cookie.

"I thought you were trying to diet, Miko-chan," Eri purred devilishly. Mikoto's face reddened as she spun to face her tormentor. "I worked out an extra hour at the dojo, just in case," she started to sputter, when suddenly a second cookie stabbed into her hand.

"Two, then!" Akira declared solemnly, even as she herself scooped up two cookies. Eri helped herself to a cookie as well and fell in with the others as Tenma led them deeper into the house.

As her friends deposited their bags and finished their cookies, Tenma laughed fondly and shouted "Are you guys ready for the best slumber party ever?"

Her three guests raised their hands in unison. "Hai!"


	2. Chapter 2

"I'm not sure I understand." Harima watched in confusion as the editor flipped through the pages of his manga. "This end seems rather abrupt. The main character is about to declare his love, finally. The heroine gazes up expectantly. Then, nothing," the editor summarized.

"What?" Harima shouted, leaping to his feet and seizing the manga from his startled editor's hands. He flashed though the pages and then shouted to the heavens, "Nooo!" even as he felt himself spiralling into the black abyss of despair once again. "The last page," he managed to whisper. "It's missing. It must be back at Imouto...at my studio!" he quickly corrected. Harima had no interest in trying to explain his working arrangements to his editor.

"Please, Tarawa-san, hurry and get it. The editor-in-chief is.. he is not a patient man." Both men glanced across the room to the corner where the Editor-in-Chief loomed, larger than life, glaring across his domain with disdain. For a brief moment, he made eye contact with Harima, who leaped out of his chair as if struck by lightning.

"Hai, editor-sama, hai! I will get it right away!" Harima wrung his red beret between his hands and he backed slowly out the door. Once clear, he dashed down the stairs, legs spinning furiously and raising a cloud of dust around him.

The four young girls sat together around the kotatsu, sipping tea and finishing off the last of the cookies. "Do you need anything, Onee-san?" Yakumo called from the doorway.

"No, no, Yakumo," Tenma replied in a sing-song voice. "We are fine." She turned to her friends, narrowing her eyes naughtily. "Besides, it is time for big-girl discussions that are not appropriate for Yakumo." Eri and Mikoto looked up sharply at this, protests rising in their throats, but Akira silenced them with a glance.

"Yes. Good night, Yakumo-chan," Akira stated. As the younger girl retreated, Akira raised a hand to forestall the simmering complaints from Eri and Mikoto. "Tenma is correct. A rainy night slumber party is the perfect time for serious discussions." Somehow the lights dimmed except those focused on Akira's face. "Mikoto-chan, we will start with you. What is the nature of your relationship with Asou-kun?" As Mikoto sputtered and started, interspersing increasingly feeble protests with tentatively relevant admissions, the rain began to fall harder and harder.

Harima slowed his motorcycle to stop half a block away from Tenma's house. He raised the corners of his leather jacket to keep the pelting rain at bay and swung his leg heavily over the side. Lightning flashed, casting an almost unnatural aura around the home in the distance. As he approached, he noted lights spilling out from the common room, despite the late hour. Tenma-chan! For some reason, she was still awake. He had hoped that if he tapped lightly at Younger Sister's window, he could quickly get the missing page and disappear back into the night with Tenma none the wiser. Grimacing, he recalled the incident when Tenma-chan had caught him sneaking about in Younger Sister's room. If she caught him here this late at night, surely she would leap the wrong conclusions again!

'Tenma-chan! Why can't you see that my motives and actions are pure, pure with my love for you!' he thought with anguish. 'Perhaps she has only forgotten to turn off the light.' Silently, he crept closer, silhoutted in the rain, occasional bursts of lightning casting frightening shadows in every direction. As he approached the window, voices wafted out to him. Cautiously, he peered inside. 'Damn it! What are Suou, Takano, and Ojou doing here? If they catch me, I'll never hear the end of it, especially from that rich girl. Why is she always in my business?' Harima tilted his head to hear better what they were talking about.

"Aiieee, talking about Love is so naughty!" Tenma exclaimed.

"I didn't say Love," Mikoto insisted hotly.

Akira nodded. "Yes, it is too soon for such declarations." Mikoto started to protest the phrase 'too soon' but Takano carried on over her. Her eyes shifted slightly towards the window as she turned toward Tenma. "Now, it is your turn, Tenma-chan."

Tenma fell to the floor, rolling around in embarassed excitement. "Noooo, Akira-chan, don't make me! I've been trying to confess my love but it's too hard... don't make me talk about it," she pleaded.

"Ok," Akira started to say when Tenma suddenly shot back up into position at the table. "Ok, I'll do it!" she declared, "but only if everyone has to take a turn after me!"

What was this? Tenma, about to confess her true feelings of love? Harima froze in place. He knew this was wrong. Lurking outside the window as young girls, dressed for sleeping, shared their secrets with each other. The word "Lecher" appeared in neon lights over his head, or so it seemed as he pondered his situation. Still, he could not bring himself to move from this spot. Tenma-chan... love confession...

"I know that I've always spoken of Karasuma-kun," Tenma shyly began, blushing coquettishly from beneath her long eyelashes, "but that is because I've been scared to face the depths of my true love." Slowly, she lifted her gaze from her friends to peer directly out the window. "It is you, Harima-kun. My heart can sense you, now as always. Come to me, my love. Come to me and be mine forever."

Not bothering to waste time with doors, Harima crashed through the window! Suou and Takano screamed and scattered to the sides. The princess gasped and scrambled out his way as Harima dashed across the room to scoop Tenma into his arms.

Harima just barely caught himself before his laughter of triumph revealed his presence. The water streamed across his smiling face as he lifted it to the heavens. Surely, this vision was about to come true. Eagerly he leaned forward as Tenma began to speak.

[A/N: This should be about 2 more chapters. Sorry for the shorter chapters, but the quick cuts seem to work better with a School Rumble fic. It's been a long while since I've written anything, and far long since I've done an anime fanfic, so please forgive any lapses in quality or content from my earlier work. I haven't read all the existing SchooRum manga, only what's been published in America, so this is based almost entirely on the anime. Hope you're enjoying it!]


	3. Chapter 3

Tenma started slowly, shyly explaining how she'd first come to notice the odd, quiet boy in their class, always standing apart from the rest. He got good grades, did well in sports when he was not busy managing or refereeing them. The boys all liked him, though he seemed to be close to none in particular. He spoke infrequently, but always respectfully. Though she knew that some people thought him strange, she saw him as unique and this drew her to him. She described their meals together, eating onigiri in companionable silence; their walks home, through rain and shine; the wrestling match they'd attended together. He was everything she had ever dreamed of in a boyfriend. No matter how often she garbled her attempts to confess her love, he always treated her gently and kindly, and that gave her hope. Her eyes shining with unspent tears of joy, she envisioned the moment when she'd finally summon the courage to declare her feelings.

As she described the scene to her moist-eyed friends, Harima's heart shattered and he shrunk into a lump at the base of the window, hugging his knees to his chest.

He'd known. He realized that. The evidence had been clear for some time that Tenma's heart was focused on this Karasuma. Somehow, he'd always thought that one way or another she would realize that her feelings were misdirected, that it was Harima who truly should be the love of her life. This time, though, as he'd listened to her detail each and every thing she loved about Karasuma, Harima understood that he himself possessed few if any of those qualities. Karasuma was quiet and contemplative. When he wasn't lost in daydreams about his Tenma-chan, Harima was anything but. He was a man of action, of loud and bold statements. Karasuma was unique and odd. Harima was just another delinquent. Karasuma was smart and respected by all. Harima was stupid and feared or mocked. Harima had the soul of an artist, he knew, just as Karasuma, or Nijou-sensei, did, but Tenma knew nothing of that, in either of them.

He remembered the first day he'd set eyes on her. He hadn't saved her from those ruffians out of any desire to do good, but rather because he was spoiling for a fight. He hadn't brought her to his apartment out of any grand motive of chivalry, but really just to avoid problems with the police. It was only when she'd wrapped her arms around him and whispered that she'd loved him that she had captured his heart. He knew for sure now that it wasn't him she was whispering to that night. It was a dream, likely of Karasuma. Had he really been so desperate for love and affection that the brief touch of this pretty girl could capture him so completely. He looked back over every strange misunderstanding, each crazy combination of coincidences and slapstick which characterized the vast majority of his interactions with Tenma and realized that this pattern had been set from the very beginning. Yes, through it all, somehow, they had become friends, but obviously, she knew nothing of him and he little of her. The Harima she knew was something he had constructed, to fit what he thought she wanted, but what she really wanted was Karasuma. He wasn't the person he'd been pretending to be. He wasn't the person she thought he was. He wasn't the person he had been before he'd met her.

So what did that leave?

Harima shifted carefully, preparing to go. His lost page of manga long forgotten, he only thought to get on his bike and ride away. Lightning flashed again and as he listened for the thunder to follow, he instead heard something strange. His name.

"We're all rooting for you, Tenma-chan!" Mikoto announced joyously. "Isn't that right, Eri-chan?" The young bluette turned to find her blonde friend gazing off into the distance. "Eri-chan?"

"Hmm?" Eri shook herself back to the moment and forced a quick smile. "Hai! Ganbare, Tenma-chan!" She ignored Mikoto's concerned frown and hid behind her lifted tea cup.

Tenma blushed and smiled gratefully at all of her friends before turning her attention to Eri. "Thank you, Eri-chan, but now it's your turn!"

"Yes, yes!" Mikoto agreed. "Any new developments with Harima-kun?"

"Harima-kun?" Tenma asked. She'd finally accepted Yakumo's persistent denials that she and Harima were anything other than friends, but she hadn't realized there might be something between him and Eri-chan. "I thought he liked you, Miko-chan?"

Akira simply shook her head in disbelief at Tenma's complete inability to decipher anything about Harima. "Harima-kun and Eri-chan have quite the history, eh Eri-chan?"

Realization dawned on Tenma's face as she smiled knowingly at Eri. "That's right... the dance... swim lessons..."

"Bathing together..." Mikoto added, drawing a gasp of delighted shock from Tenma and one of horror from Eri. The young blonde girl started to argue, feeling the blood and heat rushing to her face, but suddenly, she settled down. Something about the sound of the rain falling outside and the warmth of the kotatsu left her feeling far more melancholy than angry. Hearing Tenma's declaration of her feelings for Karasuma and seeing the unbridled hope in her eyes reminded Eri of how little of that precious substance she had. Hope... how could there be hope. Sooner or later, she'd have to accept one of the arranged marriages. Did it matter how she felt about anything... or especially about Beard.

"Eri-chan?" Tenma asked quietly, laying a concerned hand on her shoulder. This brief touch loosed the emotions which Eri had bottled up for so long. Tears streaming, she flung herself into Tenma's startled arms, sobbing. Tenma looked over at Mikoto and Akira helplessly, patting her friend on the shoulders gently. Mikoto shifted over and embraced Eri from behind, surrounding her completely in comfort.

After an awkward moment or two, Akira spoke in an unusually gentle manner. "You should talk about it, Eri-chan." The latter sniffled loudly and carefully disengaged herself from Tenma and Mikoto. Settling back into her place, she looked at her friends with bloodshot eyes. "He drives me crazy. He is a rude, crude and stupid..." She sighed and lowered her gaze. "Why can't I get him out of my head?" Her friends waited, scared to break the spell. Eventually, she went on.

"Sometimes, when I'm with him, I feel so happy, so free," she went on. "I'm not worried about what he thinks, I can just be me. He doesn't try to flatter me or kiss up to me like the other boys do. He doesn't seem to want anything from me. But, for some reason, when I need someone the most, he's there." The sounds outside reminded of her of that evening she'd stood helplessly watching her father drive away, rain pouring over her, until suddenly it stopped and he'd been there at her side, umbrella in hand. She recalled the chill she'd felt just before his coat had settled over her shoulders on the evening of the Sports Festival.

"He's a total screw-up! Somehow, he always manages to get things completely wrong, do exactly the most idiotic thing possible to make any situation worse, but... in the end somehow, everything ends up alright. Even when I don't know it's him, he's there, making things better and driving me crazy at the same time!" A cool evening in a dark shrine, a warm blanket and strong shoulder to lean on, falling asleep with a perfect stranger but feeling completely safe... had she somehow known it was him all along?

"When we're together, everything seems more real, more genuine," she concluded. "But it doesn't matter. He's dating your sister, isn't he?" She directed this with an unexpected burst of bitterness at Tenma.

Tenma shook her head vigorously. "I thought so, too, Eri-chan, but Yakumo says they are just friends and I believe her."

As if on cue, they all heard Yakumo's voice coming from outside. "Harima-san?"

Yakumo turned off the lights in the kitchen, except for a solitary night light in case her sister or friends wanted a late night snack. Making her final rounds straightening up, she drifted into her father's old study. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted something out of place, a flash of white on the floor by the desk. Stooping down, she found a page from the manga she'd spent the early evening reviewing. It was the final page! Harima-san must have dropped it while he was gathering his papers. It was due tonight! Maybe if she hurried, she could get it to him before his deadline. He'd worked so hard at it. For a moment, she worried about her sister, but she knew that Tenma would be distracted by her friends. If she went now, she could be back before Tenma missed her. Yakumo knew that Harima-san did not want her sister to know about his manga and she'd guessed why. This bothered her for some reason, but she did not dwell on that. Instead, she quietly put on her raincoat, tucked the page into a plastic bag for safekeeping, and slipped out the front door. As she turned to lock it, she glanced to her left and saw a dark figure looming in the shadows by the window. A flash of lightning revealed the figure's identity.

"Harima-san?"

Eri-chan darted to the window and threw it open, not even noticing the rain that swept in on her with the cool breeze. It was him! Lurking outside the window, no doubt spying on them or coming for a clandestine meeting with Yakumo, who stood beside him staring. What had he heard? How long had he been there? Waves of humiliation threatened to ovewhelm her. Thought fled and instinct took over. She couldn't stay here. She couldn't bear to look at him, to have him look at her. She needed to be gone. With a cry she dashed out of the room, grabbing her overcoat and tossing her shoes quickly. Even as her friends started to react, calling to her, she threw open the front door, pushed past the frozen Yakumo, and fled into the rainy night.


	4. Chapter 4

"Harima-san?"

"Imouto-san?"

"Harima-kun?"

"Ten...Tsukamoto-san."

A flash of gold

"Oujo..."

Harima stood in the rain. Light spilled out of the now-open window, framing the shocked expressions of Suou and Takano. Tenma had vanished back inside. He turned back to Younger Sister, trying to make some sense of the last few minutes. Wordlessly, she extended something towards him. He recognized it as the missing page of manga which he had come to collect. Accepting it from her, he muttered a quick thank-you, though the document had no meaning for him at the moment. He stared at it blankly, barely aware that Tenma had joined her sister outside. All four women stared him expectantly, but he could not move. Nothing made sense; the world spiraled around him and he cast about for something solid on which he could cling. He felt as if he were at sea once again, staring at a wave taller than his ship and ready to crash over him. Water dripped from his hair and ran down his cheeks.

Eri didn't know how far she'd come or even where she was. She'd just run, through alleys, across deserted streets, along a wind and rain-swept road until she could run no longer. She shivered violently, her drenched hair hanging in ringlets on either side of her face, dripping water onto the silk of her nightshirt under her thin overcoat. Squeezing her arms around herself for a warmth that would not come, she dropped to her knees, trying to catch her breath. She could never face any of them again. She would have to move, back to England perhaps. Her tears mingled with the teardrops in the puddle at her feet, casting ripples through the reflected streetlight. After a moment, the light flickered, or rather, a shadow fell across her. Suddenly a thick warmth fell down over her. Her hands rose to grasp the worn leather and pull it closer, even as she lifted her eyes and felt her heart rising into her throat.

Beard stood at her side, an umbrella held overhead to shield her from the rain, a terse expression on his face. "Oujo, you're going to get a cold," he said brusquely.

She stared at him for a moment and then shot to her feet. "Beard, you... you..." she shouted incoherently and then she raining punches down on his chest. "I hate you.. you... you stupid beard... hate... I... you..."

Harima simply stood, waiting, silently absorbing her increasingly feeble blows. When she finally stopped hitting him, he wrapped his free arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. She did not resist.

"Why?" he said finally.

"Why what?" she sniffled in response.

"Why me?"

"You heard. Don't pretend that you didn't."

Harima grunted and tilted his head back into the rain, letting it wash over him. "I thought I loved Tenma-ch.. Tsukamoto-san," he said quietly, more to himself than to her.

Eri looked up, startled. "Tenma-chan? Not Ya.."

"No," he barked. "Imouto-san helps me with my manga, nothing more. It was always Te.. her sister. I thought that she was the girl of my destiny. Until tonight."

Eri spun suddenly out of his grip, turning her back on him, but remaining close under the umbrella. "You heard what she said about Karasuma-kun and then you heard what I said about you. So, what is this? Do you think I'm some sort of consolation prize? Or did you just feel guilty?"

"You really piss me off, Ojou, you know that," Harima barked. "You just say whatever you want, don't you. Everyone else gets the Princess or the Rich Girl, but I get this."

"You get me as I really am," Eri muttered. "As no one else does."

"And you get me," Harima replied sharply. "I didn't even realize that until tonight. For better or worse, I hold nothing back with you."

"Lucky me."

Grabbing her arm, Harima spun her to face him, meeting her glare for glare under the harsh electric light. "I know what it's like to care for someone who loves another. I know what it's like to pretend to be something you are not and to refuse to recognize what is right in front of you. You, Ojou, you are just like me." Eri snorted, but did not say anything. "Just like me," Harima continued, "but the problem, Ojou, is that I don't much like myself."

Eri arched an eyebrow and stopped yanking against his grip. "I know why I don't like you, Beard, but what don't you like?"

"I'm stupid," he answered quickly. "I'm just another rude delinquent. I don't deserve to have someone like you like me. You deserve someone rich and smart and handsome, someone better..."

His words cut off suddenly as Eri's lips covered his. The umbrella fell to the ground forgotten as his arms locked around her waist, allowing a thin sheet of rain to wash over their kiss. As suddenly as she'd embraced him, she pulled away leaning back into the strength of his arms. "Stupid Beard, you have no idea," she whispered in a warm tone. "You don't know anything."

"Ojou... Eri-chan..." he murmured. "What now?"

Eri laid a finger across his lips and giggled suddenly. "I don't know, but we can figure it out. As I recall you owe me a fancy dinner. Do you have any money at all, Beard?"

"I will once I get paid for my..." He jumped back suddenly and grabbed his hair with both hands. "My manga! I need to get that page in tonight or they will drop me!"

"Mangoku to the rescue!"

Harima and Eri both turned, startled to see Harima's motorcycle rolling to stop next to them. Seated behind the helmeted driver, Tenma happily waved the plastic-wrapped page triumphantly. Stepping off the bike and tossing the helmet to Harima, Mikoto shook out her short blue hair and grinned broadly. "If you hurry you can make it," she said. "We'll take Eri-chan back to Tenma's with us. It's not that far and Akira-chan and Yakumo-chan are waiting for us." "Ganbare!" Tenma chipped in enthusiastically.

Harima grabbed the page from Tenma and swung up onto the bike as Eri picked up the umbrella and moved to stand with her two best friends.

"Oi, Ojou, we have unfinished business," he shouted as he rolled the bike forward. He stopped it directly in front of Eri, lunged down and scooped her up into his arms, kissing her deeply. In that moment, he forgot that Suou Mikoto or even Tsukamoto Tenma even existed. Dropping her back to the ground gently, he roared off into the night, laughing like a very happy maniac.

As they trudged back toward Tenma's house, crowded under the one umbrella, Eri smiled demurely as Tenma went on and on about how lovely love was and how this surely boded well for her sure-to-be-successful confession to Karasuma which she promised she would deliver tomorrow. With the house coming into view, Eri yawned, followed soon by the other two young women. "What a night," she said quietly. "I think I'll sleep in till noon."

Mikoto looked up sharply. "What is it?" Eri asked.

"That Akira... in all the excitement, she's managed to avoid her turn. I'm sure she's gone to sleep so that we can't ask her about her love life!"

Meanwhile inside the Tsukomoto house, Yakumo slept soundly in her room. In a quiet corner of the common room, a penguin-suited Akira Takano smiled cryptically and settled in to sleep.

[A/N: Disclaimer: I own nothing, blah blah. Forgot to do that, it's been so long. Well, I've known I've had some sort of story percolating ever since I finished up the SchooRum DVDs earlier this week. I'm not sure I love the ending here, but better to end it when I'm on a roll than risk leaving it if the inspiration flees after a long weekend. I hope that the characters aren't too OOC and the tone is recognizable as School Rumble. I love Eri but am not convinced that Harima is good for her in his current state as of the end of the anime. This story is an attempt to sort through that. Anyway, hope you've enjoyed. Please review if you have time!]


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